Praktiker AG (PRA), a German home-improvement retailer, said it’s considering insolvency for itself and units after some of its creditors didn’t approve more financing. Excessive debt and lack of liquidity are reasons for declaring insolvency, the company said in a statement today. Alternative financing became necessary after the company failed to sell a stake in Luxembourg-based unit Batiself SA because the buyer’s board didn’t approve a deal, Praktiker said. Proceeds from a sale had been “firmly included” in the retailer’s financing plan from last year, it said.

German and French businesses will see their borrowing costs tumble by tens of billions of euros over the coming years thanks to aggressive central bank action to lower the cost of funding. Countries in the credit starved periphery – the main target of easy monetary policy – will continue to struggle however, and will benefit far less from a projected €42bn reduction in debt payments over the next five years, according to an FT analysis of European Central Bank data.

It was announced that Gehrlicher Solar filed for insolvency in Munich, Germany, making it the latest loss of a German solar company following Conergy's announcement last week, Solar Novus Today reported. The company employs approximately 250 people and has subsidiaries and joint ventures throughout the world. Details of how the employees and businesses will be affected have not yet been disclosed.

German solar group Conergy has filed for insolvency, putting about 800 jobs at risk and becoming the latest casualty in an industry battered by overcapacity, plunging prices and a trade dispute between Europe and China, Climate Spectator reported. Once Europe's largest solar company, Conergy has been fighting for months to secure fresh investment and a deal with its creditors, and earlier this week it had looked close to an agreement.

The top judge at Germany's constitutional court questioned on Wednesday whether the strings attached to any bond purchases by the European Central Bank would be strict enough to protect German taxpayers, The Wall Street Journal reported. On the final day of hearings into the legality of the ECB's main measure for dealing with the euro-zone debt crisis, Andreas Vosskuhle, president of the court, said there were certain promises that can't always be kept.

Brussels is to propose giving itself powers to wind up failing eurozone banks, in an uncompromising banking union plan that pays little heed to Germany’s legal and political concerns. According to a summary of the “single resolution mechanism” proposal seen by the Financial Times, power to shut down banks would be centralised in the European Commission. Brussels would have the clout to overrule the bank’s home country and use funds from a central pot. The blueprint for the resolution authority is due to be published this month.

Germany's job market may be the envy of a struggling Europe, but many Germans say their country's so-called Jobwunder has passed them by, The Wall Street Journal reported. Germany's unemployment rate was unchanged for the seventh straight month at a relatively low 6.9% in May, after seasonal adjustment. Yet nearly one in five working Germans, or about 7.4 million people, hold a "minijob," a form of marginal employment that allows someone to earn up to €450 ($580) a month free of tax.

Germany has agreed to give jobs or apprenticeships to about 5,000 young unemployed Spaniards every year, under a deal signed by labour ministers from both countries in Madrid on Tuesday, the Financial Times reported. The deal reflects rising concern in Berlin and other European capitals about a looming social crisis in countries such as Spain, where the rate of youth unemployment now stands at 57 per cent. But it also highlights Germany’s growing need for qualified workers, which is fuelled both by demographic changes and by the recent strong performance of the German economy.

Europe moved closer to favouring big uninsured depositors over bondholders when imposing losses on a failing bank’s creditors, despite UK-led warnings that the special treatment would have a “perverse effect” on bank funding, the Financial Times reported. In a pivotal intervention during an EU finance ministers’ meeting, Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, gave conditional backing for a “depositor preference” compromise, so uninsured deposits are only hit as a last resort.

Commerzbank, Germany's second-biggest lender, said it is considering launching a platform to operate ships in a bid to recover higher values from the vessels that it seizes after shipowners fail to service their loans, Reuters reported. The goal of such a project would be to run the ships together with partners for a limited time, Commerzbank said in the prospectus of its capital increase published on Tuesday. The shipping industry is facing difficult times because of the economic downturn and a glut of new ships, which were ordered during the boom years before 2008.